It's meant a lot of change.
I mean it's no longer business as usual, definitely that's for sure.
For the first time ever we're actually selling what we do as opposed to what it costs us to
do what we do.
We're in a region that is characterized by dynamic growth and while not necessarily widespread
hunger a very complicated issue related to more nutrition, whether it's over nutrition
or under nutrition, food security and nutrition security issues, demanding very sophisticated
and appropriate and tailored approaches.
So the integrated roadmap allows us to assess that from a very strategic point of view,
taking us to 2030, so a strategic planning horizon that matches up with Agenda 2030
or the SDG time frame and then design our interventions, our country strategy plans
that are most appropriate so that WFP can stay relevant.
It's clear that what we have been offering is old style and that it's quickly going out
of fashion.
Many of our components, for example our nutrition component, as it's written right now in Sri
Lanka, nobody's funding it.
So what is it that we really can offer the country, the communities, the government?
This is our opportunity now to find out.
Timolesta is relatively well forward, as I said, it's got very good development plans
and vision.
It hasn't got the implementing skills and that's where WFP sees the benefit in the future.
While we're helping the government create a roadmap, we're also helping establish what
comparative advantage various agencies or NGOs have got to support the government in
achieving what the government wants.
We had to work hard on the confidence of our people to understand that they could go from
being the doers to being the teachers, if you like, or sharing what they know how to
do instinctively with people from government and other partners.
Training is needed, it's very easy to say training, but more than that is training for
your new adaptation to a new working environment.
So it's been a struggle initially and a bit of a crisis of confidence, but having come
through that people are finding tremendous satisfaction in being able to influence the
big decisions that people have.
So it's a different approach, sometimes we tend to look at issues and situations from
a WFP-centric approach, whereas this is now an approach where we are genuinely working
with government and society, academia, private sector, parliamentarians, NGOs, national NGOs,
and coming up with an approach, this is what the roadmap is to 2030, and after that's
been done, taking a step back and saying okay, well this could potentially be WFP's role
and having that conversation also with the government.
We are still finding our feet, particularly with our sister agencies in country who are
not quite sure what it's all about, so while it's a cultural change for WFP, it's also
a cultural change for all of the other agencies.
Now we are also interested in being as efficient as possible and so there's other components
of the integrated roadmap that will do just that, and be able to help us understand how
the money we're raising and investing in this effort, how it relates directly to the outcomes
that we're trying to achieve, and in the course of things making the management of those resources
as efficient as possible, in other words stretching donor dollars essentially as far as they can
go.
So we are really going to be in a position to say look, this is how it's impacted the
beneficiaries.
We can stand behind this as opposed to say, well we're not quite sure how it impacted
the beneficiaries, but we do know it cost us this much to do.
It really is an opportunity for WFP to be fit for the 21st century and to help our governments
and our beneficiaries achieve zero hunger.
